President Carter launches ‘Call to Action’ to end human rights abuses against women and girls

“A Call to Action: Women, Religion Violence and Power” the new book by President Jimmy Carter.

“A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power” documents various crimes and human rights abuses against women and girls, including slavery, genital cutting, child marriage, honor killings. Abuses against women aren’t limited to the developing world, and examples are just as prevalent in the U.S. today, think sexual assault cases on college campuses and in the military.

Carter places special emphasis on the role religion can play in perpetuating the discrimination of women. “The relegation of women to an inferior or circumscribed status by many religious leaders is one of the primary reasons for the promotion and perpetuation of sexual abuse. If potential male exploiters of women are led to believe that their victim is considered inferior of ‘different’ even by God, they can presume that it must be permissible to take advantage of their superior male status. It is crucial that devout believers abandon the premise that their faith mandates sexual discrimination,” he writes.

Guest:

President Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth President of the United States (1977 to 1981), Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2002, and the author of over two dozen books, including “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violences, and Power” (Simon and Schuster, 2014)